Dalmatian Daze
by LilMissFerret
Summary: Follow the story of the Dalmatians as never told before. Before Pongo and Perdita ever met, before they were even born, and farther into the future. Rated T for suggestive themes in the beginning, mostly light and fun after that. (Name Change/Updated Chapters!)
1. Kingsley

**A.N. Updating chapters to make this story fit my ideas better. Name change is due to the fact that there are no longer just 123 dalmatians, and 490 doesn't fit the title right. :D**

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**Dalmatian Daze**

**Chapter 1**

**Kingsley**

For months there had been phone calls and negotiations, money poured into tests and stud fees. All of it came down to this week, where he would be dropping off his champion dog in the hopes of securing his future in the show ring.

He had chosen the very best, Lucianne's only real competition. Together their line would be unmatchable, if all things went as planned. Tom was nervous, which wasn't his usual demeanor, but he swallowed that down as he secured the heavy duty carrier in the back seat. The navy box jingled with the dogs extra sets of tags. He tossed the folder in with all her documents too, but only after triple checking it for everything.

Slightly more confident, he slammed the door and walked back into the house. Lucianne was curled on her bed in the corner of the room, but she raised her head as he walked in. She was a sweet, well behaved dog, and for that he was grateful. Reaching across his kitchen table, Tom snagged her lead and called her to his side.

Lucianne got up, and with all of the grace of a queen, the same grace that had earned her a wall full of ribbons, she strode across the room. She stood still and let him clasp on the leash. He could only hope that she took to her new status with such poise.

**o.O.o**

Life for a show dog was simple, perfect, at least in the mind of one brilliant Dalmatian. Kingsley had been born Miss Paisley's King Arthur, from a very prized line in the north east. His breeder called him the very best of the litter, and it had taken quite a lot of money to bring him half way across the country.

Kingsley led a wonderful life. He thought he had it all, a shelf full of shiny metals and trophies, a wall of photographs, certificates, and awards, his own room even, and a large kennel for him alone.

He glanced up from his food bowl, his reflection moving with him over the engraved silver dish. The door to his room opened then, his servant coming to fetch him. The tiny man unlocked the door to his kennel, holding the chain-link door open as he gracefully stepped out, nose and tail high in the air.

He studied the man before barking, "Well? What do you want?"

The man just shook his head, unable to understand a word he said, like always. Like all humans. "Come on, King. You have lady friend waiting on you."

Kingsley cocked his head to the side in confusion. He hadn't been expecting any company. Either way, he always enjoyed a visit from one of his ladies. His servant knew a thing or two about a proper looking Dalmatian, so he only had to deal with the best money could buy.

As they walked side by side down the long hall, Kingsley pondered who it might be, Destiny most likely, he hadn't seen her in weeks. Instead they entered the sitting room to find his biggest competition in the show ring, at the feet of a rather large black man, her 'master' as she called him, one Mr. Anderson.

"Well, well, if it isn't the Little Lady herself," he greeted, taking a great sniff of the air around him. "Come for a little visit? I knew you couldn't resist."

The other dog shifted around uneasily, clearly uncomfortable, before drawing back her lips and showing off her sharp, white teeth. "Go to hell, Kingsley."

"Now, now, love. Is that anyway to talk to the dog that can solve all of your problems?" He approached her cautiously, playing it off as if he was merely sauntering slowly towards her. He gave her his best wolfish grin.

Lucy retreated ever so slightly, keeping him away with the threat of teeth. Mr. Anderson reached out a comforting hand, stroking her spine in an effort to calm her.

It seemed to work, her chocolate eyes closed half way, her mouth settling into a noncommittal expression. Taking his chances, Kingsley circled around her, that intoxicating smell growing stronger. The man kept petting his dog, distracting her.

And then it was too late, there was no attacking or removing him once he had made his move, and after the briefest of struggles, Lucy seemed to accept that fact, going wobbly kneed beneath him.

Once satisfied, Kingsley dismounted, standing at her side, her brown spots clashing with her black ones. He smacked her with a sharp flick of his tail to draw her attention, but she was too worn out to even complain. "Tomorrow then, Lucy?"

She only hung her head in defeat.


	2. Lucy

**A.N. It never made since for this part to be split, so I added it back together and added a nice scene in the middle. That was the big problem before, the humans didn't play enough of a role so the story got botched. Oh well, it's fixed now!**

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**Dalmatian Daze**

**Chapter 2**

**Lucy**

There was no repeat or the horror she had suffered at her master's command and for that Lucianne was exceedingly grateful. Instead, only a matter of weeks later, she was lying on her plush bed in the living room, rubbing the pad of one paw over her swollen stomach, feeling the movement beneath her skin. The movement had frightened her at first, along with all of the other changes she had been through.

They had just returned from her doctor's office where she had been rubbed with goo and prodded endlessly. Seven puppies, the vet had said, all of which looked perfectly healthy to her.

Lucy smiled to herself, stroking her paw back over her belly, pausing when Tom strode into her view, grabbing the phone from the wall and dialing out.

"Hey, Bob. We just got back from the clinic," he said, pausing to listen to the other man. "Uh-huh. Oh, um, seven. She said seven."

Lucy sat up as quickly as she could manage, pulling up one ear so she could hear better.

"I might keep one or two. I was going to sell the rest. Hoping for a litter of girls, you know?"

The anxious feeling in her gut intensified. Sell them? He couldn't sell her puppies!

"You wanted what? A liver pup. Okay, okay. I'll be sure to save you one."

That was the last straw. Lucy couldn't bear the thought of any of her sweet puppies going to live with that monster. She wouldn't have it. She got shakily to her feet, studying her home desperately. What could she do to change his mind?

The puppies would be born with the next week or two, whatever needed to be done, needed to happen before then, while she could still protect them all at once.

It seemed to her that the only viable option was to run, now, tonight even, and put as much distance as she could between them. Her anxiousness put her master on edge; after he had hung up the phone he spent much of his time staring at her as if she might explode. Lucy willed herself to play calm, curling up on her bed and pretending to sleep instead of her endless pacing.

That seemed to comfort him, and her twisting and turning little ones too. Eventually Tom disappeared, speeding away in his car, leaving Lucy to her own devices.

The hour or so she had spent plotting paid off. Her plan was ready. Lucy slipped out the back door, glad, once more, that the dog door was made for the largest of the canine world, and her rounded stomach could fit though it easily enough. Once outside she made her way to the gate that separated her from her freedom. The gate was taller than she could reach, she knew, so she had brought one of the chairs form the patio with her, dragging it through the yard, where she managed to right it. Lucy jumped up into it, and after examining the latch, she slid the hook free with her nose, watching as the heavy door swung open.

Freedom.

But that freedom was short lived, Lucy soon found out, and cost a great deal. Night was quickly falling as she reached the first edges of the city, hunger gnawing at her, but she knew that stopping now wasn't an option. She was too noticeable. For the first time in her five years of life, Lucy wished she hadn't been born a Dalmatian, a show dog. She longed to be one of those carefree mutts that played in parks and watched protectively over there family.

But it was not to be. Instead she wandered the streets, stopping once to dispose of her bright yellow collar and tags, and another time to lie down in a large, muddy puddle to disguise her fur. Feeling a little more secure, she searched for a place to sleep, one of those fancy, flower covered parks catching her eye.

Without thinking, Lucy darted into the road, a large four lane monster that was unlike anything she'd come across so far. She made it halfway in one shot, pausing for a breath on the cement piece that separated the two different paths. A monstrous truck streamed behind her fluffing her sticky fur with the wind coming off of it, blaring a horn that got her moving.

Frightened, she dashed into oncoming traffic, blinded first by the bright headlight, and then by the pain shooting through her as her leg hind leg got yanked and she was flung to the edge of the sidewalk, the smell of roses mingling with the tang of blood. The pain was overwhelming, blackening her vision, and sending her into unconsciousness.

******o.O.o**

Anita Darling was busily scrubbing out one of the many kennels at the tiny shelter. Although this was one of her least fun objectives, she didn't mind the hard work. When she was finally done, she stood back up, and hauled her bucket and trash bag out of one cell and to the entrance of another. She was just releasing the lock on the doggy door when one of her colleagues, the vet for this little operation came into view.

"I need your hands, hurry," he told her, disappearing once more around the corner.

Concerned, Anita shut up the kennel and hurried to the exam room as quickly as she possibly could. The sight before her seemed unreal, on the table, stretched out on what appeared to be an old ratty blanket was a startling white dog, splashed in buckets of her own bright red blood. The dog was hardly breathing, eerily still. To top it all, her bloated stomach seemed to be straining, muscles twitched in one of her back legs and her tail. The other leg lay limply, torn wide open so that Anita could see the bone jutting just above her knee.

"Oh my God. What can I do?" she asked, frightened.

Evan, the vet, threw her a pair of gloves. "Put those on, and get some towels."

She obliged, skirting the worried woman in the corner who must have brought the dog in, and pulling out a thick pile of cotton towels. By the time she'd returned to his side, Evan was already wrist deep in the dog's belly. He extracted a little ball of goo, and instructed her on what to do as he reached back in for another puppy.

Anita ripped open the sac and pulled it off of the little puppy, a girl. Rubbing the little one vigorously until she made a little cry of despair. Alive, albeit dirt, Anita placed her pup to the side and readied herself for the next one. Even the scared woman helped, reaching for one of the newborns and helping it to start breathing.

Although the process seemed to take ages, in a matter of what was truly only fifteen minutes, they had delivered seven healthy puppies, all of which were mostly white. Satisfied, Anita was instructed to take the puppies to be cleaned up properly, while Evan made short work of the stitching.

Anita led the woman into the next room over, what had once been an extra exam room before the shelter had been downsized. "What happened to your dog?" she asked curiously, stroking a warm, damp cloth over the first puppy while they talked.

"She's not mine. I'm afraid I hit her on the highway. I didn't know what else to do, I'm new around here, and didn't know where a vet would be. I'm glad this place was near by."

She nodded. "It was nice of you to stop to help. Not many people would do what you just did," she returned with a smile.

They continued to chat back and forth, until finally she excused herself. Anita said her goodbyes, doing her best to soothe the puppies until Evan could get their mother fixed up. Thankfully, it didn't take him much longer.

**o.O.o**

Lucy woke sometime later, numb and feeling eerily empty. She tried desperately to sit up, but she was so weak she could only lift her head off of whatever it was she was lying on. The space smelled of chemicals and people.

A woman approached her then, and although her vision was exceptionally blurry, she thought the girl might have been smiling at her.

"Morning, sweetie," she whispered, reaching out to stroke her head and neck. "Come on, time to wake up."

Lucy managed a low whine, letting her eyes flutter closed for a few moments. When she opened her eyes the next time her vision was much the same as it always was, but more interesting was than that was the squirming ball of white that the nice, smiling girl had in her hand.

Its little eyes were sealed shut, and the tiny ears were pinned to its head, clearly a newborn. Lucy could just make up the faint spots that already rimmed those tiny ears. Lucy's eyes followed the girl as she placed the puppy at her side, where six equally squirming puppies were already nursing. Her puppies.

Lucy ran her tongue over the little ones, smelling them, and counting them over and over as they ate. Soon the tiny pups were drifting off to sleep where they sat. Glancing back up, she searched for the girl that had helped her, only to find out that she had gone, leaving bowls of water and food by the door.

Content, she laid her head back down on the soft mound of blankets that they had placed her on, unaware that her fight was far from over.


	3. Barkley

**A.N. Only a little added to this one. Enjoy. :)**

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**Dalmatian Daze**

**Chapter 3**

**Barkley**

Up until the day he was able to hear, Puppy Number 2, as he was called, was the quietest of the lot. Once his ears opened up and he could make out different sounds, the largest of the puppies began to teach himself some new tricks.

"You're a yappy little thing, aren't you?" one of the many people that came in and out of their room asked once. His brothers and sisters had already tired of the stranger checking on the nasty cut on his mother's leg and returned to their play, but not him. Instead he was sat in the center of the room, barking like mad at the man.

"Ought to call that one Yapper," he continued, laughing at his little joke before getting to his feet. "How's that sound, pup?"

He answered with a long howl.

"No? Barky then?"

The door popped open behind him before he had the chance to make another reply. Anita, their favorite of all of the workers, the only one that visited them every day, several times a day, stepped into the room, closing the door behind her, but she didn't look nearly as happy as she normally did.

The rest of his litter mates bound over to her, shoving him out of the way.

"I don't think that's sophisticated enough," she said sadly, looking towards his mother who was struggling to get to her feet. "Lady," she called, making the dog freeze and cock her head to the side. "Lucky," she tried again. "Lucy?"

At that their mother barked, wagging her tail, and limped closer to Anita.

"Thought so," she sighed, looking back to her fellow worker. "A star Dalmatian went missing three weeks ago, eight and a half weeks pregnant."

The man, however, did not look upset. "Lucy, huh? I knew someone would be missing her."

"So you can't call that puppy something as simple as Barky."

"Oh! How about… uh…" he snapped his fingers impatiently as he tried to find the name. "The dog on Sesame Street… Barkley."

Anita laughed, grabbing the puppy around his middle and lifting him from the floor. "Barkley. It sounds like an old, rich family name."

"Exactly."

"What do you think pup?" Anita asked softly, lifting him up to her face.

Barkley licked her nose, satisfied with his new name before squirming to be put down. His mother smiled at him as he approached her, slightly nodding as she tested it out in her head.

He sat down at her feet, wagging his black tail. Lucy licked the top of his head, messing up his mismatched ears, and then nudged him back in the direction of his siblings.

Life was good.

**o.O.o**

For the people, however, the air was bittersweet at best. The shelter had raised the puppies from their first moments of life. They had been such tiny things, born just a little too early. Now they had spots and personalities that blossomed more and more each day.

And if the puppies were special, Lucy had come even farther. Anita was especially attached to her. Lucy had come in shaken and quiet. She never wagged her tail or barked, just sat around taking care of her puppies. She was a fantastic mother, and it showed with her happy brood.

Anita wondered if it was her previous home or her night on the streets that had caused her so much stress. Heavily pregnant dogs weren't the most likely to run away from home for no reason, but stranger things had happened.

Either way, it wasn't her place to deicide, she was just the one that was supposed to make the phone call. Anita checked the time before dialing out, carefully copying the number from the article in her hand.

On the third ring, a deep, gruff voice answered her. "Hello?"

"Hello, Mr. Anderson? This is the City Animal Shelter, my name is Anita."

"Has someone turned her in? Lucianne?"

He sounded generally relieved, and Anita felt a little bad about judging him. "We think so. The dog we have in our possession seems to match your description, and the photo."

"Excellent. I'll be there soon." He paused, a loud shuffling noise filled the silence for the few empty seconds.

"Well," Anita cut in, "Your dog was injured when we got her, we cannot release her for a few more days, until the vet gets another look at her."

"What kind of injury?" he asked. "Is it serious?"

What would be considered a serious injury? Lucy was fine, and so were all of her puppies. "No, not really. She tore a ligament, and will have a limp, but everyone's fine. Her puppies also had to be delivered via c-section. Five boys, and two girls."

The man let out an angry growl. "I'll be there soon," he repeated and then hung up.

Anita removed the receiver from her ear and gently hung it up as well. A dark, twisting mass seemed to have taken root in her gut.


	4. Smokey

**A.N. Again, only minor changes. Blaze's and Cocoa's chapters to come relatively soon.**

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**Dalmatian Daze**

**Chapter 4**

**Smokey**

Anita felt uneasy for the next few hours while she waited at the front desk. She was shifting through paper work for the third time before a giant of a man yanked open the front door and came in. His brow was furrowed, and he didn't look very pleasant.

"Hello. Can I help you?" she asked warily.

He looked up, and Anita could see his scowl deepen. "Which way?" he asked.

Getting to her feet, Anita motioned to the door on her right. "It would be best if you stayed outside the room."

He huffed, but didn't truly answer her, moving to open the door himself, only to be thwarted by the lock. If the tension had been anything less than over the top, she might have let the small trickle of amusement into the air.

Anita unlocked the door and stepped out of the way, allowing Mr. Anderson to stomp down the hallway. She stopped him at the extra room. At first he seemed to be following her orders, starring through the tiny window in the door, but that didn't last him long.

He jerked open the door a second later, stepping into the little room and filling the doorway.

**o.O.o**

The day was just like any other in their short lives. Smokey climbed up onto his mother's back while she slept, the difference between their coats only growing more noticeable as he aged. The workers at the clinic had named him as such because he was the darkest of the puppies, and had always been since the day they were born. Both of his ears were solid black, as was half his face, most of his back, the base of his tail, and one of his back legs.

He hadn't minded, none of them had, until door got flung open and in walked a man that he had never seen before, Anita glaring angrily at him from behind.

The puppies instantly retreated to their mother's side, cowering behind her. She was equally frightened, growling at the man as he entered.

"Stay behind me," she whispered, dragging herself up despite the uselessness of her hind leg, putting as much of herself in between them and the stranger as she could.

Anita was concerned, she had never seen Lucy like this either, and made to help in the dog's effort, keeping the man at bay.

"What did you do to this dog?" she asked, stepping in front of him.

The man shrugged, side-stepping around her. "She ran away, I didn't do anything." He looked pointedly at their mother, "Lucianne, come."

Lucy growled again, backing all of them farther into the corner.

"Just back off," Anita tried again, placing a hand on the big man's arm. "You are terrifying her."

"Get off, lady. That's my dog and my litter of puppies. I'll do whatever the hell I want."

"Lucy's not healed completely; you can't take them for another week at least."

The man growled, taking another step forward, but unwilling to actually bite this man, Lucy spoke through her teeth, "Run. Around the wall. Get to Anita."

Shaking, the seven of them crouched low, and did as they were told, scurrying across the wall. The man moved too fast, lunging forward and grabbing a pair of them by the scruff of the neck.

Smokey dangled helplessly in the air, curling his feet and tail into his belly, as did one of his brothers. Once the man was righted he examined his catch, eyeing Blaze with a look of appreciation. Smokey could see why, with Blaze's perfect markings, from his spotted ears to his evenly marked coat, but when those dark eyes turned on Smokey himself, all he saw was disappointment and disgust.

"This isn't to be winning any show," he huffed, dropping him back to the ground harder than necessary. "Ugly."

Still cradling a whimpering Blaze in his arms, the man examined the rest of the puppies from where they were, shivering on the floor. "Two," he said suddenly a moment later, rubbing his free hand over his forehead. "Two thousand dollars for a stud and all I get it is two puppies worth anything."

Anita crossed her arms, "They're worth plenty. These puppies are sweet tempered and love people. They'll make great pets."

"Pets? I don't need nice pets, lady. People don't want to pay seven hundred dollars for a pet."

Lucy growled again, forgotten on the other side of the room. All eyes were drawn back towards her in time to see her sink her bared teeth into the fleshy part of the man's leg right above his ankle. He shouted in pain, kicking back and striking their mother in the bad leg as she tried to hobble in retreat. She buckled under her own weight as the man fell too, losing his grip on the puppy he was holding, letting him escape the moment he was close enough to the ground.

"Out!" Anita screamed, rushing to Lucy's side and helping her to her feet, checking on the wound that had reopened in the struggle. "Get out of here! Now!"

Without complaint, he did so.

That night was cold and lonely without their mother.


End file.
